Following orders from the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned, mostly in solitary confinement, on a Turkish island for 14 years, guerrilla commanders based across the border in northern Iraq announced the freeing of the Turkish hostages, some of whom have been held for more than 18 months.

Anxious, if relieved, family members of the six soldiers, a police officer and a civil servant, rushed to Harbur on the Turkish-Iraqi border to meet their relatives.

"We release eight captives to the delegation upon the request of our leader. Our only aim is to contribute to the [peace] process," said Baver Dersim, a PKK commander in the Qandil mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK, deemed terrorists by the US and the European Union, is headquartered.

The release was the first tangible result of the attempt at a negotiated settlement, which kicked off gingerly last October with Turkish intelligence service approaches to Ocalan, but which in recent weeks has escalated, generating a wary confidence that the chances of ending one of the world's longest-running conflicts are perhaps better than ever before.

The conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives since it erupted in 1984, with the past 18 months especially bloody, leaving about 900 dead. The prospects for a settlement and the apparent willingness on both sides to negotiate are being fed by a mutual sense of stalemate in the fighting.

Husamettin Zenderlioglu, a Kurdish politician of the BDP, or Peace and Democracy party, the political arm of the PKK, was among the team escorting the freed hostages from Iraq to Turkey. "The personnel have been handed over safely," he said."

The release of the hostages and the expectation that the PKK could declare a ceasefire next week have been seen as confirmation of Kurdish good faith in a delicate process where mistrust remains strong on both sides.

"It shows that the negotiations are on the right track, that things are going well so far," said Vahap Coskun, a university political scientist in the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in south-east Turkey.

"This is a very important, a very crucial step of this ongoing peace process. Not only is the release of the hostages a sign of goodwill on the part of the PKK, but the organisation also signals that they want to continue the peace talks."

It is not clear how the Turkish government will respond, however, amid signs that the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is aggressively trying to keep control over, and dictate the terms of, the negotiations.

The momentum picked up a couple of weeks ago when Kurdish politicians were allowed to visit Ocalan on his island prison and returned with a 20-page "roadmap" for peace that envisages a PKK ceasefire, withdrawal of fighters into Iraq, disarmament, as well as a package of civil and human rights concessions to the Kurds, and reform of draconian anti-terror laws that have put 8,000 Kurdish activists in jail, often merely for voicing their opinions.

The Ocalan roadmap was promptly leaked to the Milliyet newspaper, triggering a government-inspired hunt for the culprit. Erdogan lashed out the press for "sabotaging" the peace efforts. The large media conglomerates backing the government promptly fell into line. A journalist defending the leaks as press freedom was suspended.

Ocalan stressed in his roadmap that the Kurds were not seeking a separate independent state, but that the Turkish government had to grant Kurds all cultural rights in order to achieve peace.

"The PKK made a positive step. Now it is the turn of the government to act. This sign of goodwill needs an answer," said Abdullah Demirbas, the BDP mayor of a Diyarbakir district. "I am very moved by today's events. It gives me hope that the on-going negotiations will finally achieve peace for all of us."

Ocalan is now expected to announce a ceasefire on 21 March, when Kurds in Turkey celebrate Newroz, their new year holiday.

Ongoing Turkish air strikes targeted at the PKK in northern Iraq, meanwhile, feed Kurdish leaders' suspicions about the Erdogan government.

"These military operations have a detrimental effect on the peace talks," said Coskun. "Once the PKK declares a ceasefire, the Turkish government will probably stop military operations against PKK camps in northern Iraq. And once the fighting stops, the peace process will gain momentum."